Brook Lopez

Save your horse, and ride a… Justin Hamilton?! As we coined on the Podcast, the coach of the Nets has officially changed his name. It’s even on his newly issued Birth Certificate! It’s no longer Kenny Atkinson. While Brooks wears his giant cowboy hat, Kenny literally wears his ass on his head. He is forever more: Kenny Asshat. I’d love to make that my Halloween costume!

After that shockingly low-run debut, Brook Lopez persevered in game two with a 25/5/1/1/0 line in only 26 minutes on Friday night. Maybe the most shocking aspect of that game was the Nets actually won an NBA game! Then on Saturday afternoon, we get word Brolo is going to get a healthy DNP-rest. Mother F Asshat! Because of course after 2+ healthy seasons including playing 33+ MPG last year, Brook is an injury risk. This is a ticking time bomb in Brooklyn… Asshat wants to chuck as many 3s as possible; through Saturday night’s game, Brooklyn’s 37.3 3PA were second in the NBA, only to the Mavericks who had an OT game then played Houston. 42% of their shots are treys, which leads the league thus far (small sample of course). Even in that “good” game from Brolo Friday night, he shot 0-4 from deep, giving him 6 3PTA this season. His career high 3PTA?! 14 last year for 0.2 a game. 3.0 thus far in 16-17. A big part of his value has been game-to-game reliability and FG%, and now we’re not going to get either. Asshat really wants to pound Brook’s square peg in a round hole, and we all know Asshat has a big round hole! What a mess this team is. Hopefully you don’t have too many shares of Brolo, and if you do, you’re really forced to hold as best you can. No one is giving you anything for him… But at least it opens some opportunities, with Hamilton now a streamer even in 12ers, and you know the rest of your Nets are all going to have ThrAGNOF streamability. Asshat playing his team like Duke. Shooting nothing but 3s… So annoying! No UNC bias there… I don’t think Asshat got the memo that the NBA perimeter is further out… Smh. Here’s what else went down over the weekend in Fantasy Basketball action:

What an incredible NBA Opener for big men! Maybe the Sixers aren’t as crazy after all…? But the bigs across the league went absolute ham; they were big hams! It’s why in Supermarket Sweep the people would always go for the hams first. Why did they never go to the wine section?! Just nab the best ish there and start a party!

Myles and JV go for 30, Embiid has an epic debut, but it was Anthony Davis who takes home the best line of the openers thus far, going an absurd 50/16/5/7/4! I mean, it could literally be the best line of the season… Double rainbow, 7 steals?!, shot 17-34, and hit 16-17 FT. After taking a little flack keeping him #1 last year, Brow started the 15-16 season going 18/6/2/0/3 shooting 4-20 (420!) and 10-15 FT. Dude, apparently the Pelicans medical staff – in all of their immense glory and wisdom – should’ve taken a hammer to his ankle before last season! Hard to believe a mere 1.5 weeks ago his status for the opener was in question off a kankle, but we’re seeing the ups and downs of what it’ll be like to be a Brow owner. Especially the dread of seeing him play 41 minutes in a loss… I nabbed him in one league, and might try some preposterous sell highs. But the allure of lines like that are tough to ignore. We just all know we’re one horrific Pels medical staff decision away from this happening to him walking out of the training room. Here’s what else happened on our first major slate of NBA games of the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

The epic battle between good and evil has begun! The 3rd annual JB vs. Slim RCL drafted last night, pitting the heroic forces of yours truly against the nefarious hordes of that villainous Slim. Last year, I got the upper hand by knocking Slim out of the semi-finals, but still fell short of winning the league title. Stupid Mr. Green Beans! Ruining it for everyone…

If you’re still jittery with excitement for the NBA season, there’s still time to make a last second RCL League! If we can get a couple more created, I’ll be sure to heavily promote them through the end of this week and the weekend to be sure you have a full league. Hit up our 2016-17 RCL Sign-Ups!

With the epic responsibility to maintain goodness and order in the universe by besting Slim, here’s how my draft went down:

October is here and you know what that means? Hoops is just around the corner. With preseason games beginning, the excitement for meaningful basketball is now officially reaching boiling point.

After being out in the wilderness for 6 weeks with no internet access, I return with a slightly different flavor from my previous pieces, but rest assured that if you are tuning in to see “Dynasty rookie rankings 41-60”, then they are just around the corner.

As you can imagine, the excitement of having all TV and internet services installed after such a long delay (man, what did we do in the dark world before the internet?!) were soon quashed by opening my browser and the first piece of news I see in basketball news is Ben Simmons suffering a broken foot in practice. Yet more hurt for those Philly fans, with yet another top draft pick spending significant time with the medical staff. It may well be that there is some kind of curse in Philadelphia, but let’s hope the uber-talented phenom will be back on his feet soon (excuse the poor pun).

If, like me, you have a penchant for the deep league, then this may well be the article for you. Of the big fantasy sports, basketball is obvious sport where you don’t want to miss early in drafts ,with a big drop-off in production differential from the top tier to the middle tier. But that doesn’t mean leagues can’t be won with crafty, late round selections. Without further ado, here are some late round fliers that might be tempting, depending on the depth of your league:

With my Top 200 Rankings now complete and listed in one easy-to-use list, it’s time to take a look at where I stand against the experts. Every year, I ignore ADP and other ranking sets when making my top 200 list, so I’m not sullied with crazy opinions – many of which you can read about here! I am unsullied, like Khaleesi’s war general dude! That guy is boss! Except for… Well, ya know…

Stemming from a comment, I was asked more-or-less “who are your guys this year?” And well, without really knowing ADPs or expert consensus, it was tough to answer. So for the first time since I’ve been helming the Razzball ship (helm to 108!), I decided to put an article together, highlighting where I deviate from the septum. Time for a nose job! If Ryan Anderson breaks his nose this year, his new nickname should be Ryno-plasty! Ok, focus JB, I know you’re pumped for basketball, but we have your calls to get to! Here’s where I’m against the grain according to other experts’ ranks on FantasyPros:

Lady and Gents! The time is here! Time for me to expose myself to the ridicule of the internet by laying out my somewhat conservatively outrageous predictions for the 2016-2017 NBA season! All positive input would be greatly appreciated. All disagreements will result in heated comment debates with no one actually being right, since the season hasn’t even started yet…

Last preseason, I had some solid predictions that were quite controversial! Namely, that Isaiah Thomas would break out, and that Greg Monroe would be a complete bust. Ironically, the uncontested predictions were the ones that didn’t fare so well… Primarily due to injury, but what can you do about that? Clearly, nothing, if you’re the Pelicans medical staff that is.

Whew, I admittedly had a little rankings-shock after writing War & Peace with my Top-10 there. I gotta whittle this down a little bit if we’re gonna have the ranks done by September like I hope! No one wants to wait until early October to read about the 198th ranked Jeremy Lamb… Or maybe they do!

I must preface these ranks with an admission – I’m buying more and more into punting. I’m Todd Sauerbrunning it! You can pull off some pretty crazy rankings changes when you knock off some categories in BBMonster valuation. And before everyone gets all snotty with their comments, I know I’m going to bounce around using some 9-cat valuation for some guys, then take out some cats for others. Ranks can’t be a one-size fits all, they change each player you draft. It would be like ranking a white wine high with a steak recommended as the pairing, THAT’S BLASPHEMY, DAMMIT! Here’s the Top 25 for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season:

As we prepare for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season, I’ll be taking a look at each NBA team with their major adds and drops to see if we can pan for any surprise rotational gold. This open is especially witty for the Nuggets. We’ll be counting down from worst NBA regular season to the best, mainly because I’m still figuring out how to rank the Warriors…

Brooklyn Nets (21-61)

Key Acquisitions:

G Jeremy Lin

F Trevor Booker

G Greivis Vasquez

F Luis Scola

F Anthony Bennett

GRandy Foye

G Chris LeVert (Rookie)

C Justin Hamilton

G Isaiah Whitehead (Rookie)

Key Losses:

F Thaddeus Young

G/F Joe Johnson

G Jarrett Jack (wahhhhhh!)

G Shane Larkin

G Donald Sloan

The Fountain of Youth

Ewwwwww, the Nets. I still can’t fathom how anyone could be a fan of this team. It just exudes boredom. Nothing exemplifies this better than what they did at PF, but we’ll get there.

While you’d expect a team this bad to overhaul they A) traded all their picks in that horrific Celtics deal and B) gave big contracts to Brook Lopez and Thad Young last year, apparently happy to stay in the status quo. If there was ever a team that looked stuck in the mud, it would be this one. Get ready to start yawning!

Ranks are hard! I almost changed the title to “Way Too Much Of A Headache Ranks” since 2016-17 is gonna be ridiculous on draft day! So many guys with upside, so many injury question marks, free agency is gonna explode, we still have rookies to mix in here… And I don’t feel like I have as many “on a limb” calls as the past few seasons. Everything seems to be nebulous, murky, jiggly-like-Raymond-Felton-running, “I guess this guy seems about right” kind of ranks filling out the top 50. If anyone thinks they’re more excited than I am for free agency and the NBA Draft, they would be sorely mistaken! I need some clarity out here, dammit! Hopefully with some signings and scouting the rookies, I can find some more bold calls when we get to the “real” ranks in August. Or maybe I’m gun shy after the Wiggins fiasco. That will go down as one of the biggest international scandals in history… Dammit, eh! Here’s my Way Too Early Top 50 (1-10 can be read here, 11-25 here) for the 2016-17 Fantasy Basketball Season (with 1-50 in a complete list below):

The H2H season is over! Hopefully you triumphed over your leagues with Ws in the final week, and kept from being rocked by the DNP-obsessed NBA. NBA coaches and GMs are just trolling us fantasy players! Ya know what Dwane Casey? You’re flat out dumb, your mom is ugly, and you’re a n00b coach!

Erstwhile all these benchings, we got a big return yesterday afternoon with Blake Griffin rejoining the Clip. On top of Doc saying he was mad out of shape, we also got news his quad is still bothering him and he’ll be playing through the pain. Oh, wahhhhhhhh Blake! What about the pain of getting slugged in the face by one of the most jacked NBA players in the league!? Or as you see it, sorry his skull caused your hand such pain! Hopefully you were only stashing Blake in IL leagues, as he only put up 6/5/4/0/0 with a TO in 22 minutes. He shot 2-7 from the field, and looked more gassed than Zoolander’s Balls Models friends… Did anyone even see the 2nd one? Looked awful… Anyway, Doc said he was going to be really careful with Blake, so if your league continues on until the bitter end, be prepared for continual low-minutes and Doc to hop in on the DNP obsession. Hopefully it’s just a fad, like Angry Birds or those skinny rubber wristbands… Oh wait! Here’s what else went down over the championship weekend in fantasy basketball: